January 20, 2019 – John 2:1-11
John 2:1-11
Miracles: A Lot of Work
Second Sunday after the Epiphany – January 20, 2019
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
This is a famous and well-loved story: Jesus turns water into wine!
Jesus: everybody’s favourite guy!
There are so many great elements in this story.
Jesus: the good time guy: he’s at a wedding, he’s enjoying himself.
But the hosts are running out of wine! Oh no! What to do!
Mary tells her son: “They are running out of wine!”
Jesus: “Woman! NMP!” Basically: not my problem.
But of course it is Jesus’ problem:
as I have said before, I think Jesus says this with a wink and a smile.
Maybe he’s being a little petulant: Jesus turns 180 gallons – 180 gallons! – of water into wine.
That’s a lot of wine!
As if maybe to say to his mother: you want wine, I’ll give you wine!!!! Ahahahahaha!
Nevertheless, it certainly seems as if Jesus wants everybody to continue having a good time.
So he performs everyone’s favourite miracle: turning water into wine.
It’s even become a famous joke involving a pastor on his way to a wedding reception.
A police officer stops him, asks him, “Been drinking, pastor?”
“Just water, officer.”
“Then why do I smell wine?”
“Good Lord, he’s done it again!”
And as I sent out in the email this week, the joke has now become a greeting card that
my sister Margaret sent me for my birthday!
A very beloved story about Jesus, known even by those who know little of Christian faith.
As with many miracle stories, the miracle itself does not get a great huge description.
Like a magic trick performed by a magician, we may long to hear more details about
how the trick was done, but we rarely, if ever, get them.
The huge water jars are filled up with water, and when it is next drawn out and
given to the steward to taste, it has become wine! Viola!
A miracle! Thank you, Jesus, for the delicious wine!
Only reading the story this year, this year I thought about something I hadn’t thought of before.
The six stone water jars that Jesus tells the servants to fill are enormous:
they are tall, about the size of a human being,
and each holds the equivalent of a bath-tub full of water.
Now as I have said, that makes an enormous amount of wine.
But here’s the thing that has me thinking: That is a lot of water to draw and put in the jars!
There was no indoor plumbing at this wedding – or outdoor either.
Jesus gives the order very blithely – “fill the jars with water” – but what a lot of work to
fill six enormous stone jars with water!
Drawing water was a lot of work in the ancient world!
Who knows where the well was, and how far one would have to walk to get to it?
You had to haul all that water up from whatever depth the well was, bucket by bucket.
Then you had to lug it all back to where it was needed, carrying as much as you could stand
so that you could make fewer trips.
And how many trips would that entail for the servants?
You see what I’m getting at?
Miracles are a lot of work!
Sometimes we can get the impression that miracles just happen: “Ta-da!!”
But not in this story: in this story the miracle entails a lot of work.
Yah: it’s a miracle, but it’s also a lot of work.
Sometimes, maybe most of the time, this is the way it is, right?
We just came through a financial miracle, I think –
and I don’t think miracle is too strong a word.
From the outside, to the casual observer, maybe it’s something that just happens:
we raise the equivalent of about a hundred thousand dollars in six weeks. Viola!
But for those involved – they know what a lot of work that was,
and the amount of work that amount of money represents.
Minimum wage in Manitoba is currently $11.35.
$100,000 represents, therefore . . . 9000 hours of work!
That is a lot of work!
Yes: it was a miracle, to be sure: but that doesn’t mean it’s not a lot of work.
Another miracle that regularly happens at First Lutheran Church is the weekly food bank.
Every week there is a food bank right here.
Groceries are given away to 50 to 80 families! Poof!
Anyone who wants is welcome to a meal prepared by our own members! Poof!
Hundreds of people in our community are served every month! Poof!
A miracle! Truly it is.
But anyone who has worked at food bank knows what a lot of work it is.
Setting up, fetching the groceries, sorting the groceries, distributing the groceries,
making the coffee, making the sandwiches, cooking the meal, cleaning up,
doing the dishes. . . . Whew!
It is a miracle that happens every single week at First Lutheran Church – but it is a lot of work.
Or even say a miracle involving wine at FLC: Holy Communion.
Every Sunday we are served wine and bread made by our very own members.
Larry Ulrich makes our wine,
and Anne Pereira and Susan and Heather Werboweski make our bread.
The wine kind of miraculously turns up in our storage cupboard,
and the bread sort of miraculously turns up in our freezer. Poof!
But what a lot of work! Make sure to thank them!
And then another miracle happens: every Sunday bread and wine are served to all,
without price, to everyone who desires it.
And even more miraculous: with the gifts of bread and wine come along with the miracle of
Jesus’ assured presence with you, the assurance that you matter,
the assurance that you are strengthened with love and grace and forgiveness.
With the bread and wine also come the miracle of community building and bonding.
With the bread and wine come the miracle of absolute welcome to every single person who
walks through our doors.
But . . . it is all a lot of work!
Just ask the communion room workers!
The people who prepare the bread and the wine for serving, filling up all those little cups!
The same people who clean everything up afterward, washing up . . . all those little cups!
It is lovely, and it is miraculous to be served this meal every single Sunday . . .
but it is a lot of work.
Miracles are all around us – but they are a lot of work.
The ordinary is shot through with the extraordinary, every day.
In the story, the simple words “They have no wine” become abundant wine for all.
I think the story is powerful because “They have no wine” are words we can all relate to.
“They have no money. She has no cure. He has no friends. I have no strength.”
Sometimes, as the writer Debie Thomas notes this week, that is the only thing we know to say.
“There is need here. Everything is not okay. We’re in trouble. They have no wine.”
The miracle, though, often comes through someone’s work,
through God working through someone – and when I say God working through someone,
don’t forget that word “working”: for the person involved, it’s work.
But it’s still a miracle.
For when the wine runs out in life, Jesus is there, present in someone, with other words,
turning
water into wine.
“I’m here. I’m listening. I care.
There’s still hope. I love you.”
These things are miracles – but they entail a lot of work, because it’s a lot of work to love.
Love is a miracle, perhaps the most miraculous, most divine thing of all –
but everyone in this room knows that love is a lot of work.
The good news in the story is that yes: Jesus’ presence turns water into wine.
Jesus turns our water into wine.
Yah: it’s a lot of work, but here’s the thing – and even more good news:
In the story it is only those who do the work that manage to see God’s glory.
Along with the disciples,
it was only those who did the heavy lifting that managed to glimpse the glory of God.
Yes: it’s a lot of work, but it is a miracle.
God hallows our work – and our work is part of the miracle.
So let’s keep working, let’s keep being generous.
Let’s ask and allow Jesus to turn the water of our lives into fine wine.
And when the only words we can speak are, “There is no wine” let us remember the promise:
Jesus turns our water into wine.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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